I worked for small businesses most of my life but gave recently scored a dream job somewhere with fantastic conditions. It is a surreal culture shock. It is due to the fact that this place has had very strong union representation for over 30 years. It is easy to forget that your labour is being exploited when your needs are met. Good conditions should be the bare minimum, we should be fighting for a lot more. Instead, due to capitalist greed and exploitation, most of us are still fighting for a livable wage.
My workplace has 4 weeks holiday leave, 4 weeks sick leave (increased from 2 since Covid), family & carers leave, 12 months maternity leave, 6 months parental (Dad/partner) leave, with a 6 week flexible return to work period, cultural leave, long service leave and probably more I don't know about.
We have access to flexible work arrangements, time-in-lieu, and we've just scored the right to WFH.
We are paid 17% retirement contributions on top of our salary.
We get ~20% pay rise over the next 3 years.
We have psychosocial risk management, where workload stress is seen as workplace health and safety issue.
We are strictly obligated to work no more than 7 hours in a day and we can choose those hours between 6am and 6pm. If you want to start at 6am and finish at 6 pm and have a 5 hour lunch break, you can.
We have the right to disconnect.
We have a temporary contract conversion limit, where, if you hold a casual position for a certain period of time you are automatically given permanency.
I am grateful for the decades of work the union has put into our conditions. The reality is that these conditions should be standard. Nobody should be fighting for a liveable wage in 2023. Instead, we should be fighting for 20% retirement contributions, a 3 day work week or a 2 month paid summer shutdown. The bar is so low for workers rights and conditions that the job I am in sounds like a fantasy to most. Our collective hard work was meant to build happier and easier lives, instead, that labour has been converted in to profit and is sitting in billionaires' bank accounts or tumbling around the stock market. Join your union.